Classic Australian Wooden Power Boat Association

Great stuff Damo.

Funny about those time warp things. They happen everywhere and with some regularity.

Boat looks great!

Showing total disregard for the Job List is a very ballsy effort Damo. Your wife will be able to find a few sympathetic female ears should you two ever venture over this way to a wet together. I should give you my wife's phone number (it was her 40th last sunday so I did the right thing and drove an 8 hour round trip down through Melbourne and bought a metal lathe for her)

Deck looks great, wait til the first coat goes on!!!!

Hi Damo,
Dave has asked me to post this pic of a stainless skeg that let go on him due to work hardening.

Mmmmmmm, i have to say that does make me a tad nervous, although I work in a fabrication industry and see structural and high load items made every day out of stainless , I think I will talk to our engineer !!

Boat Update!!

THROTTLE: Well it took me around 3 days but I have finally finished the foot throttle and carby linkages . I have stayed old style with everything being actuated via stainless rods with rod ends. The original throttle was crammed up close to the R/H side of the boat and seat so that you could only use it if you had your your knee around your ear. Well having raced MX for toooooo many years I have more stainless steel in my right leg than the bloody boat has and would not last long before the painkillers were broken out !! With that said I have gone with a left foot throttle of which I have no issues with.

DOG BOX: I have stayed along the same lines as the throttle set up using a stainless rod. I have shifted the lever from under my feet to a central position trying to get that car sort of vibe. Lever is an old HURST shifter I had laying around in the shed and have used an old piston for the knob again trying for the hot rod effect, I think it looks good myself,

Hi Damo, I have the same boat as you (sort of) and I know what you mean about the foot throttle, I still have bruising on the side of my knee from the pummeling, I went with a cable and spring setup which works ok although i'm leaning towards using hydraulic on my next project, it worked really well on my little outboard hydro and solved so many problems, your boat is looking really nice and should be tough on the water! Cant wait to see it in the flesh. Ray

Damo. That skeg of mine was really well made. The welding looked really neat with plenty of penetration.
The metal failed next to the weld. Maybe if it was heat treated and stress relieved it might be more stable.

Heat treating would be a good idea.
Stainless steel probably not a good idea.

The skeg on the new Spook is made in two pieces, the plate which bolts up under the boat (3/4 mild steel plate) and the leg was cast in mild steel from a plug I made out of wood. The plate was machined so that the leg went through the plate and the plate was relieved both sides so that the weld would go deep into the plate and was TIG welded both sides by a professional welder. After cleaning up the two welds, on the flat side to give a flat finish and on the leg side to give a nice fillet shape it was heat treated for two hours at 600 degrees C to normalize the welds and casting. The leg is 1" thick.

The above is probably overkill but anyone considering making a skeg themselves should think about the process very carefully. I was at Taree when Bootlegger's skeg let go and the prop and prop shaft pretty much tore the whole arse end out of the boat, something you should all think about carefully considering that you rear seat skiff guys literally sit on top of the prop.

I admit I have a habit of over engineering stuff.

Spook

Well put Bob. You know after i got home with my wrecked boat I went about repairing it. I sent the prop shaft away to be straightened. You could imagine my surprise when they handed it back and said it didnt need straightening.
I still cant believe how that 8 foot shaft was flailing around tearing up the back of my boat and didnt bend.

So Dave for a moment there you were running with a Thai Longtail set up eh? I'm not sure what exact part of my anatomy is tensing up just thinking about that incident

Hey Guys, well another weekend coming to an end. I managed to get some shed time yesterday and today and got the boat floor made and fitted. I had to start from scratch as with everything with this boat it didn't come with any. Once I made up and fitted the floor supports I fitted up all the flooring. In keeping with the hot rod theme I made up a centre console which turned out better than I thought it would and fits the lines nicely. I also made up the rear seat from scratch and copied what was left of the front one. So now at least I can sit in the bloody thing and pretend its on the water!!!!! Got the MOONEYE gauges the other day and they just need wiring up. Also made up some copper ferrals and inserted them into the boat ribs and flared them using a jig i made. These are for the steering rope to go through as i noticed that the old rope had cut into the wood which caused the plastic outer to fray., Cheers!!